The Internet of Things (IoT) system shows a heterogeneous nature. Internet of Things devices are of dissimilar types and are connected via various wireless communications technologies like WiFi, ZigBee, Z-Wave, etc., or by various wired communications technologies. It is expected that tens of billions of heterogeneous Internet of Things devices will be deployed in the future. These properties distinguish the Internet of Things system from the Internet system so that existing device management schemes cannot be directly applied to the emerging network setting. In a conventional IT (Internet Technology) system such as web services, a device (e.g., a computer server) is identified based on its domain name or IP (Internet Protocol) address. A user discovers services or data of interest using the identifier of a hosting device and authenticates the host using a certificate for trust establishment. This is known as a host-based approach. The success of the host-based approach is primarily attributed to a standardized IP-based addressing scheme and a globally unique naming system (i.e., DNS or Domain Name System) based on IP addresses.
However, many communications technologies in the Internet of Things do not support an IP-based addressing scheme, and thus many Internet of Things devices cannot be uniquely identified by IP addresses. It is not possible to reuse the existing IP address-based naming system directly for all devices in the Internet of Things. Moreover, due to the heterogeneous nature, it is not possible that all the communications technologies have a single addressing and naming scheme. The mobile nature in the Internet of Things brings another challenging issue that prevents the host-based approach using IP address from being applied to the Internet of Things environment. Many Internet of Things devices are easily installed and uninstalled to physical objects. Mobile users frequently approach to the Internet of Things devices, systematically speaking, and they join and leave existing Internet of Things networks randomly and frequently. In this setting, it is inefficient to assign IP addresses and to name the devices and users whenever they move around.
It is within this context that the embodiments arise.